Sleuthing on Christmas
by James Stapleton
Summary: OneShot Short Story! Nancy is on vacation without a mystery, but a new one appears on her porch on Christmas! This is a nice, quick read for anyone interested in Nancy Drew


**_Foreword: _This is a one-shot short story I wrote for Christmas. Because I had some free time, I decided to write a short story concerning Nancy. Well, here is one. In it, Nancy finds a strange package and goes out following the clues. What will these cryptic clues lead her?**

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__Sleuthing on Christmas_**

It was snowing harder than ever outside. Nancy Drew sat by the hearth, perusing her book which she had placed on the kitchen counter the night before. Her father just changed the door the day before yesterday and it was now colored red instead of brown. She liked it; the wind no longer got through the door and into the house, and that kept the place warm and cozy. The weather outside was getting worse, but the girl detective ignored it and continued reading.

The doorbell rang. Wondering who it could be, Nancy opened the door. "Huh?"

She saw a shadow running away from the door. She couldn't see who it was, but then she heard a car driving away from her house. She opened the door to see what it was all about when she found a box wrapped with wrapping paper. There was a ribbon on it and a note. She read it: "To the girl detective."

Opening the box, she saw an old clock. It was a mantelpiece, and the girl detective wondered who sent it. She then found another note in the box. "Go to the place indicated on the clock. Be sure to watch your step," was the message.

Nancy looked at the clock. It was indicating 5:54, but she didn't know what it meant. But then she noticed that there was a small white number on both hour and the minute hand. The minute hand had the number "1", and the hour hand had the number "2".

"I think I know what it means!" she exclaimed. "So I read the minute hand first and then the hour hand. Hm… 54 and 5… 54 Fifth Street, I suppose."

Then, the girl detective got her coat and went into her car. She reached the place in less than ten minutes. She went to the house. She noticed that it was an old abandoned house. She read the message again. "'Watch your step'… I think it means look at the staircase!" And so the girl detective looked down. She noticed that someone had placed a note on the fifth step.

Nancy read the message again. "'Solve the following code: "Blue nags ally on we hoot tree lo." Skip the steps of the stairs while you're at it.'" That made no sense. Nancy looked at the stairs. The first step was colored white. The second step was colored black. The third one was white again, and the pattern continued. That gave Nancy a clue.

"It's just like the case I solved with Frank and Joe when we were in Miami!" she exclaimed, referring to the case which she called _Ocean of Deceit_. "I just have to skip every other letter and write down the first letter, third letter, fifth, seventh, and so on."

She took out her pen and jotted down the message: "Bungalow Hotel."

Nancy knew that hotel. It was a newly-built one located right across the River Heights Mall. She went there. On the door of the hotel, someone had taped a note. Nancy saw her name on it and took it off. "'Here come the blue pipes. Find where they are.'"

Nancy grinned. She knew that one. "Blue pipe is another name for lilac. The only place I can find lilac in River Heights is at the flower shop."

The girl detective knew of only one flower shop in the whole city, so she went there. The flower shop's owner, Mrs. Flora Gardner, smiled when seeing Nancy. "Hello, Nancy," she said, handing her a piece of paper. "Some one told me to hand this to you when you come in here."

Nancy thanked Mrs. Gardner and read the letter. "It's a riddle," she remarked. "'I look like you, as you can well see/The brighter it gets, the darker I'll be... Call the farm you know, and off you'll go.'"

The titian-haired detective thought for a moment. "That's easy: the object is a shadow! And the farm must mean a ranch. Therefore, I need to call Shadow Ranch!" She took out her cell phone and called the number. Bess and George's uncle, Ed Rawley, answered the call. When Nancy introduced herself, he chuckled.

"Well, Nancy. It seems like I got a message for you. 'You now know the places you go/So where should you go next/The door will be closed/So knock before you go/And promise you won't be vexed.'"

Before Nancy could ask what that meant, Uncle Ed hung up. Nancy sighed and thought about the entire thing. First, she got an _old clock_. Secondly, she went to a _staircase_ to fetch a clue. Next, she went to the _Bungalow_ Hotel. Then, she went to the flower shop in search of a _lilac_. And finally, she called _Shadow Ranch_.

Nancy grinned and got into her car. It was so simple; the "culprit" was giving her clues in the order of the first five mysteries she had ever solved! So the next place she had to go to was a place with _red gate_. Since Uncle Ed mentioned a door, she knew that the place she had to go to had red door.

After thinking for ten minutes in her car, the girl detective suddenly gasped and hit her forehead. What a fool she had been! She just remembered that the door of her house was recently changed and was now red!

The girl detective went to her house. After knocking on the door, she noticed that the door wasn't locked. She went in. The lights were all turned off, so she reached for the light switch. She turned the lights on.

"Surprise!"

Nancy almost jumped out of her skin! Bess, George, Ned, Hannah, Mr. Drew, and even Frank and Joe were in the house, shouting Surprise! and Merry Christmas!

Shocked, Nancy looked at her friends and family with delight.

"We just wanted to give you a little present of our own," explained Frank.

"Yeah. We thought about what to give you for Christmas, and we decided to make you a mystery for you to enjoy," Bess added.

"But we didn't know you could solve this 'mystery' in such a short time!" said George, surprised.

Ned went to Nancy and handed her a small box all wrapped up in wrapping paper. "Here," he said with a smile. "Merry Christmas!"

Nancy opened it. Inside, she found a brand-new magnifying glass and a pen light. Both of them had these words inscribed: "Nancy Drew, the greatest girl detective of all time."

The girl detective's smiles didn't fade for a long while. "That's really sweet," she said. "And thanks, everyone! For once, I can't wait till I get a new mystery again!"

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**_A Quick Note: _Nancy referred to a case called _Ocean of Deceit_. That's one ofthe novels I wrote before. If you are interested, go to my profile and read some of my earlier works!**

**_Postscript: _Well, did you enjoy this short story? If you did, then you might enjoy my three previous full-length Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mysteries I wrote. To read them, just go to my profile page and click on one of the three novels (two of them are complete, and the other one is still in progress). And don't miss my fourth novel coming out on January 1, 2006!**

**Merry Christmas, everyone!**


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